The Modern Day Vampire (aka, Donating blood!)

Monday, June 11 2012

As soon as I turned the ripe ol’ age of sixteen, I took the big scary bus into the city and started giving blood. Since then I have continued to give blood every three months except this one time I had to wait 6 months because I went and got a tattoo. I was actually devastated when they changed the rules and said a female has to be 20 before they can donate plasma (Which can be donated every tw0 weeks)

I’m not so sure why I love doing it so much, I guess it’s because I can give up less then an hours time to possibly help someone live an extra long life or maybe only another 6 weeks, either way, it’s rewarding. Plus, at the end of it you get to have a milkshake! (Or water/apple juice/Orange Juice etc).

At my last session I was told I had made it to ten donations, I was quite pleased with that and then I saw the pictures on the wall of people giving their 100th, 200th and 250th donations lol, but still…ten is good! haha

Whilst donating yesterday I sat back and started noticing things, like, I shall tell you the worst parts of donating blood…

After you finish filling in the paperwork to say that you are feeling well and healthy and your name is called, you go into an little office with a nurse person. Here they shall weigh you, see how tall you are and check your blood pressure. They then have to check something in your blood so they have to do this sort of needle prick thing. Basically they get a little plastic thing that looks totally innocent, they wind it up and stick it on your finger and just when you are wondering what the hell is going on BAM! the needle jumps out and has stabbed you. It’s just a shock for a second, it doesn’t actually hurt. But the suspense is awful!

After everything is finished they take you out and sit you on a chair. The chair is the second worst thing about donating, basically you sit in the chair and the nurse pushes a button and it starts reclining and reclining and it just keeps reclining! Eventually it stops of course but the feeling that it won’t is just the worst!

A nurse then sticks you with a needle and sets it all up (Note: This was my tenth donation and they have only missed the vain and had to swap arms once).

I honestly think that’s all the bad bits, from then on you just sit there for about ten minutes, a nurse comes and takes the needle out and offers to make you a milkshake and you can sit and have a ‘Cup of tea and a biscuit, love’ then leave.

So to recap, Suspenseful needle and reclining chair = Worst bit of donating.

With that in mind I urge everyone to jump from their iPads/Computers/Laptops and rush down to your local blood donating place, if not to save multiple lives then for the milkshake at the end.

Caitlin

Do you give blood, or have you benefited from these donation – tell us more in the comments section below.